Rates of sickness at the Council drop significantly

Sickness levels at the Vale of Glamorgan Council have significantly dropped after the local authority took a number of steps to address the matter.

Tuesday, 04 December 2018

Vale of Glamorgan

Between April and September this year, rates of sickness absence, which are measured as the number of days lost over a period, fell by 17 per cent, from 4.45 per member of staff to 3.71, compared to the same period in the previous year.

This comes after the introduction of several initiatives, including the Care First Employee Assistance Programme and Positive Health Promotion.

The Care First Employee Assistance Programme is a Council-funded scheme that offers employees confidential counselling and advice on a wide range of work and personal issues.

Face to Face counselling sessions have more than doubled since first being introduced last year and the use of guidance webpages for work-related issued has also significantly increased.

As part of Positive Health Promotion, flu vaccinations are available to all staff and are being taken up in greater numbers than last year.

Cllr John Thomas, Leader of the Council, said: “The Council has made a real effort to improve the health and wellbeing of staff in recent years and I’m delighted that this has led to a decrease in sickness levels.

“This not only has a clear benefit to the productivity of the Council, but should also make a real difference to the people that work for the organisation. We take our duty of care towards staff extremely seriously and will continue to push for further improvement in this area."